In a moment the whole seven Arkansans were hopping and swearing and slashing at their necks and beating at the air, but they kept right on digging and picking and whacking at the tree. They made more than chips fly. Whang would go a pick into the dead wood and out would come a big slice of tree, and all the while the whole seven were jumping and yelling and cussing like crazy men.
Then some of the crowd began to run from the old farmhouse toward the old pine, and then others began to run, but, when the first man came near the tree, he yelled like fury and slapped the back of his neck and began to dance, and then he ran. He ran zigzag, but he ran away from the tree. The rest of the Riverbankers stopped, and when he reached them they asked what was the matter and he must have said “Bees!” for they all crowded back. They made me think of the mob in a movie. They went back a step at a time as if a director was saying, “Now! Mob—back one step; show fear; back another step!” Only it was bees doing the directing this time.
Then the Arkansans gave it up, all but Jim. He wrapped his coat around his head and dug and hopped but of a sudden he dropped his pick and hit himself in four or six places and jerked the coat from his head and came loping toward us sweeping the air with the coat, all around his head. He had not found the treasure, but he had found the bees’ nest, and as he came toward us we scooped up the money and held our pockets and ran.
We had so much money we were weighted down with it, and we had to run easy or spill it, but we made pretty good time. Not a bee got us. We ran down the road toward Riverbank a hundred yards or so, and that was far enough, for the seven Arkansans only came about fifty yards and they were making it lively for the bumblebees, and the bumblebees were making it lively for them. Neither of them had time for anything else just then.
While we were all scattered that way, we saw one man come out of the Riverbank crowd and walk right up to the dead pine. It was the Tough Customer. He had tied his pants tight around his ankle, and he had pulled his shirt up around his head, and he had his one woolen sock on one hand for a mitten and a red handkerchief tied around the other hand. With his coat on, there wasn’t a place a bee could get at him, and he hobbled right up to the dead pine and picked up the pick Jim had thrown down, and began to dig.
Jibby Jones looked disgusted.
“Dear me!” he said. “I don’t like that at all! I did hope we might find that treasure ourselves, but I certainly think it is a shame for the Tough Customer to find it after all the trouble we took to make him depart.”
This was too much for Wampus.
“What do you care who digs it up, Jibby?” he asked. “That Jim fellow gets it, anyway. You said yourself that, no matter whose land it was found on and no matter who found it, the treasure belonged to whoever owned it first. It wouldn’t be us, if we found it, and it won’t be the Tough Customer, if he finds it. The treasure will belong to that Jim man from Arkansas, because he is the heir of old John A. Murrell, and John A. Murrell was the first owner.”
The only answer Jibby gave to that was to reach out a hand and feel of Wampus’s shirt, but he didn’t like the feel of it, so he felt of mine and he seemed to like it better.
“Take off your shirt, George,” he said, slow and calm, as if he had all day to waste, and he took off his own shoes and pulled off his socks. “I don’t think that tramp has brains,” he said, “but I think he has robbed honey hives, and sometimes experience is as good as brains.”
I had my shirt off now, for I can work pretty quick when I have to, and then Jibby began pulling it over his head.
“Mr. Catlin,” he said, “I see those Arkansawyers are not fighting bees now”—but how he saw that with my shirt over his head I don’t know—“and they are not digging treasure. They seem to be looking at the sheriff as if they did not like him. And I never did like them much. I never did think that men who come sneaking up a creek or up any back way were thoroughly honest men. I wonder if it would be a good thing for the sheriff to walk over to them and tell them that they have gone off the farm into the road and that they will have to pay another dollar to get back onto the farm again? If you think that would be a good thing, and you want to tell it to the sheriff, maybe you had better tell the sheriff to pin on his badge so it can be seen.”
Bill Catlin grinned.
“I think it might be a good thing,” he laughed.
“Thank you,” Jibby said, “and it might not hurt anybody if the sheriff ran toward the Arkansawyers to tell them. Maybe they would like to know it as soon as possible, so they can make plans.”
Jibby was ready now to go and help the Tough Customer dig treasure and he started.
